Eleven
June 1929
Burrough Court
Leicestershire
Thelma leaned over the bassinet and dangled a ruby bracelet, catching the heavy sleeve of her house-robe with her free hand to keep it from brushing across the baby’s face. Gurgling, the child reached up, his pudgy arms waving unsteadily as he reached for the jewels.
“Like his mother, he is—can’t resist a bit of sparkle.”
Thelma started, curling the bracelet back into her grasp. She hadn’t expected Duke at their Leicestershire estate until Friday, as he was preoccupied with a takeover of a rival shipping business. Thelma wrapped her house-robe tighter, embarrassed to have been caught lounging in her pajamas midday.
Duke crossed the room and pulled Thelma in for a kiss. “We were able to come to an arrangement this morning,” he said. “Thought I’d come to celebrate in person. How’s the little man, then?” He leaned over the bassinet and ran a finger gently along the curve of the baby’s cheek.
“I just woke from a nap,” said Thelma. “If I had known you were coming, I would have gotten dressed.”
Two years into her marriage to Duke, Thelma’s life had taken an unexpected turn: she had become a mother. Having been told she was barren after her miscarriage, Thelma initially thought her symptoms were a fluke—an alarming stomach bug, recurring like clockwork every morning—but a doctor had confirmed the diagnosis on a trip to London.
Thelma worried about how Duke would react. Prior to the wedding, she’d told him about her condition, and he’d taken the news with typical sangfroid.
“It’s no concern to me,” Duke had said. “I’ve already got an heir—and I’m quite fond of your figure as it is.” He’d smiled, then patted her on the hand. “A baby would get in the way.” When, with some trepidation, Thelma told Duke of the pregnancy he’d changed his tune entirely. “Another Furness!” he’d shouted, lifting Thelma to whirl her round the bedroom. But as her pregnancy progressed, Thelma was aware that the terms of their relationship were shifting—inevitably, perhaps, and not for the better.
Though Duke was excited, Thelma was haunted by memories of her miscarriage. Nightmares of dying in bed, doctors sawing through her stomach to release a breech baby, wrenched her from sleep on a near-nightly basis. “Isn’t it something, knowing you’ll have a child soon?” Averill had said, cupping Thelma’s swelling belly. But Thelma found it difficult to find joy in her condition—not when so much could go so disastrously wrong.
When she confided her fears in Duke he had laughed, not unkindly. “Daisy went through it twice, and she was such a slip of a thing,” he said. “The doctors know what they’re doing—they’ll be there if anything goes wrong. Try not to let it worry you.”
When her stomach lurched alarmingly at the end of her seventh month Duke had summoned a team of doctors to the house. The premature labor lasted nearly twenty-four hours: a haze of injections and instructions, issued in faraway voices.
The next day—March 31—Thelma was presented with a wailing, squashed-looking newborn. Her boy, Duke told her. Their boy. But Thelma’s recovery took longer than she anticipated, and her doctor prescribed two months of bed rest in the country, leaving Duke to shuttle back and forth from London when he could.
Alone at Burrough Court, Thelma tried to muster some enthusiasm for the new baby, feeling, somehow, detached from it all—that someone would realize she didn’t know how to care for a child; that fate had made some mistake. Mamma had hardly been a role model for motherhood, keeping Thelma and Gloria close throughout their childhood because they looked pretty—a “matching set”, she’d called them. How could Thelma raise a child with an example like that?
She studied the baby while he slept, memorizing his wisps of hair, his seashell ears, and while she knew, on the face of it, that she ought to love him, she couldn’t quite bring herself to be happy.
“Have you chosen a name yet?” said Duke, wrapping his arms around her. “We can’t call him ‘Little Man’ forever.”
“I was thinking ‘Anthony’,” she said, looking at the baby’s wrinkled feet. “‘Tony.’ Does it suit him?”
Duke fitted his chin in the hollow of Thelma’s shoulder. The scent of his aftershave mingled with the nursery smell of baby powder and another something spicy that Thelma couldn’t quite place.
“Anthony,” he said. “Tony Furness. Does it sound a bit exotic to you?”
“I like it,” said Thelma.
Duke kissed her on the cheek. “Then ‘Tony’ it is. I’ll speak to the priest about arranging the baptism.” He snugged his arms around Thelma once more, his fingers sliding across the painted peacocks on her robe toward the drawstring.
Thelma twisted out of his grasp. “Darling, please,” she said fixing the drawstring’s loose ends. “The doctors say I’m not ready yet.” In fact, the doctors had told her she was ready to resume marital relations a week ago, but Thelma couldn’t stand the thought of making love. She had turned Duke away from her bed when her body began distorting to make room for the baby. After catching sight of herself in a mirror at a dinner in London a few weeks later—her stomach straining the front of her dress, her back twisting into a sibilant curve to accommodate the extra weight—Thelma retreated from society altogether, using Burrough Court as a refuge and doctors’ orders as an excuse; telling Duke that she would return to London when the brutal business of giving birth was over and done with.
But even after the baby arrived, her body continued to warp. Without the child stretching within her, her stomach became flabby, lined with accusatory veins of stretch marks; her breasts pendulous, throbbing with the weight of milk within them. Even her face had changed, her cheekbones retreating under a layer of fat and blemishes.
Duke had grumbled when Thelma first demanded separate beds. “You think I mind a few wobbly bits?” he said. “For God’s sake, I’ve two children already! I’ve seen a pregnant woman before, damn it!” But Thelma had insisted, not least because of the way his eyes seemed to slide, sidelong, to other women when they entered a room.
Duke persisted, stroking the silk on Thelma’s shoulders. “Well, we mustn’t disagree with the doctors,” he murmured, “but there are other things we could do, aren’t there? Other ways to while away the afternoon...?”
Thelma shied away from the thought of herself, big as a whale, manipulating Duke on their bed. “Really, darling,” she said, pulling away. “It’s the middle of the afternoon.”
Duke sighed and straightened his tie.
“I’m leaving for London after tea,” he said, holding the nursery door open for Thelma as they walked out.
“So soon?” she said. “I hoped you might stay the night.”
Duke looked down the hallway. “You know I want to more than anything, my dear, but it just isn’t feasible. We came to an agreement, yes, but there are still particulars to iron out, and Withy is insisting...”
He trailed into silence and pulled a gold case from his breast pocket. He clicked it open and took out a cigarette, clamping it between his lips as he rummaged in his pocket once more for a lighter.
“You ought to come with me,” he said. He pointed at Thelma, cigarette perched between his first and second fingers. “A night out. That’s what you need.”
“You want me to come with you? Like this?” asked Thelma, but before she could protest further Duke kissed her, heat from the smoke warm on his lips.
“This really is ridiculous, your fussing,” he said. “You realize, do you not, that you look as beautiful as ever?”
Thelma rolled her eyes, and Duke squeezed her hand. “I mean it,” he said gently. “Come to London. We can go to the Embassy Club. You can wear one of those lovely frocks of yours.”
“And Tony?” said Thelma, though she could feel herself warming to the idea. It had been so long since she’d been out, and she missed Duke terribly. Wh
at’s one more stone? she told herself. Elise would find her something loose-fitting to wear.
“Nanny will take care of him. It’s what she’s here for.” Duke frowned. “It’s not doing you any good, cooped up here. Isn’t doing me any bleeding good either, truth be told. Come to London. We’ll have fun, you and me.”
Twelve
The Embassy Club was hot and loud, a fuggy mist of smoke hovering over the crowded couples on the dance floor. Thelma tugged at the sleeve of her dress: the gold lamé strained hideously across her bust, and she could feel a seam digging, persistently, into her armpit. When she was slimmer it had fallen carelessly across her torso, bunching elegantly at a dropped waist; now, it pulled across the plump stomach that the baby had left her, curling in a defeated heap under her belly.
“You look beautiful,” Duke murmured. They stood at the top of the red-carpeted staircase, looking down on tables of women clutching cigarettes, men leaning back in their chairs with rock-glasses balanced on their crossed legs. An orchestra played in a pit below a stage at the end of the room, the singer crooning “Carolina Moon.”
“I’d look better if I’d had the chance to visit my seamstress. I wish we’d planned this properly.”
“Spontaneity is a virtue,” said Duke. “Think of Reggie and Gloria—off at a moment’s notice, no regard for rules...”
“And look where they ended up,” Thelma muttered, tugging at her dress as it began to creep back up her stomach. Duke was silent: she could tell he was shocked by her callousness but his disapproval stoked irritation, rather than shame. She took his arm and let him lead her to the bottom of the staircase to greet the maître d’.
“A pleasure to see you again, Lord Furness, a pleasure...”
“Good evening, Luigi. Here to see G, has he arrived yet?”
Thelma could feel a bead of sweat making its way down her inner thigh as the maître d’ led them to G’s table, thinking there was no possible way that the room had been so warm when she’d last visited. She searched for a waiter with a tray of drinks as they walked to a square booth framed by palm fronds where G, seated next to a dark-haired woman in green silk, raised his arm in welcome.
“Thelma! You lovely girl, when Duke told me you’d be joining us I didn’t quite believe him. How’s the baby?” he said.
“He’s well, G, thank you,” said Thelma, as Duke pulled out a chair for her. Thelma sat, feeling the dress strain against her bust. “Good evening,” she said to the woman.
“Nancy,” she said, holding a cigarette aloft with thin fingers. “Old friend of G’s. I’ve heard of you, of course, but it’s a wonder we haven’t met formally before now.”
“I’ve been rather busy,” said Thelma.
Nancy laughed. “So I’ve been told. Babies do have a ghastly tendency to get in the way of things, don’t they? Thank heaven for nannies—I doubt I would have made it past infancy if my mother had raised us on her own. She’d have given us all away like a litter of puppies.”
“You have siblings?” asked Thelma, taking the cocktail that Duke had lifted off a waiter’s tray.
“Sisters. I don’t know how my mother would have managed.” Nancy finished her cigarette and flicked the end into an ashtray.
“I shudder to think,” said Thelma, glancing at Duke. Though he was speaking to G, he kept looking over at a group of women standing near the dance floor with drinks in hand. They were all young and slender, shoulders and hips thrust forward in contrived slouches. A heavy-lidded blonde with overlarge lips met Duke’s eyes; he smiled and held her gaze, playing with the stem of his glass.
Mamma’s voice echoed in Thelma’s head, a snippet from a long-ago conversation. Wealthy men don’t look far for distractions.
She finished her cocktail and stood. “Dance with me?” she said to Duke.
He turned his attention to Thelma. “Certainly,” he said. As they walked to the dance floor, the blonde leaned in to whisper something to her friends.
“Are you all right, my dear? You’re trembling,” said Duke, as the band played a horn-heavy waltz.
“Am I?” said Thelma. “Nerves, I suppose. It’s been some time since we’ve danced.”
Duke squeezed Thelma’s hand. “Too long,” he agreed.
From over Duke’s shoulder Thelma watched the blonde girl search the dance floor for him. She met Thelma’s eye and blinked, diverting her gaze. “It’s a wonder you haven’t forgotten about me—taken up with some pretty young thing.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “I’ve missed you. We all have.”
“Including her?” said Thelma, nodding to the blonde.
He looked at her sharply. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” he said.
“Which part?” Thelma stepped back, her ears ringing. “Oh, Duke. I hope you aren’t thinking she’s interested in anything other than your bank account.” She knew she was deliberately antagonizing him, but she felt a perverse recklessness—as though she could wound without leaving a mark.
Duke leaned in. “I hope you know, Thelma, that jealousy is a terribly overrated emotion.”
“Overrated, darling, but occasionally warranted,” she replied.
The song ended and the dance floor began to clear. A cabaret of ten female dancers in beaded dresses skipped onto a stage above the orchestra arm in arm.
“Look here,” said Duke, “I don’t know what you’re playing at but I won’t have it, you hear me? This—this bitterness, this moping—”
“Who’s moping?” snapped Thelma. On the stage, the cabaret began to kick their legs along to a loud American ragtime.
“I don’t understand you—truly I don’t,” said Duke. He ran a hand through his hair, and the scent of pomade bloomed around him. “You just had a baby, for Christ’s sake—you ought to be happy! You seem to be under the assumption that motherhood has made you a troll. Well, it hasn’t. You look the same as you ever did, but for that bloody scowl on your face.”
Thelma felt a pang of guilt but pushed it aside. He had no idea—no clue, how it had been. The pregnancy. The birth. Shunted away to Burrough Court like an invalid, while Duke gallivanted about, charming insipid beauties...
“I can’t pretend to know what’s going on in that brain of yours, but I miss you,” he said. “I miss how it used to be. Come to bed with me tonight.”
He trailed his fingers across Thelma’s cheekbones, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Thelma could feel her conviction breaking, her anger dissipating as his hand ran down her arm, her torso—then it brushed over the stubborn chunk of her hip.
Thelma stepped back. “G’s waiting for us,” she said.
* * *
Duke deposited Thelma next to Nancy without another word and began, with apparent effort, a conversation with G. Thelma stared at him, oddly calm, before Nancy reached across the table and prodded her forearm.
“Terrible costumes,” she said. Thelma laughed half-heartedly, twisting in her chair to watch the dancers with feigned interest.
She wasn’t entirely sure why she was being so difficult with Duke but his conduct tonight—his conduct ever since she had gotten pregnant—grated at her. His relentless attempts to pull her into bed. His assumption that he could flit back and forth from Burrough Court at his leisure, his work taking precedence over her, over the baby.
Above all, Thelma’s anger stemmed from her growing suspicion that Duke was whiling away his time in London by choice, rather than necessity. His trips to Burrough Court had taken on the tone of a chore—as though seeing her was a duty he had to get through in the course of his week. And can you blame him? said a small, calm voice in the back of her head.
Thelma glanced at Duke, who was conversing with a club-girl who had just sold him a packet of Turkish cigarettes. He nodded his thanks and she turned, pocketing more than the cigarettes were worth.
Duke opened
the carton and tapped out four cigarettes, handing them to G and Nancy before passing one to Thelma. She fitted it into her cigarette holder and allowed him to light it, his hand curled steadily around his lighter as she bent toward the flame. She sat back up and Duke flipped the lighter shut, glancing, almost involuntarily, at the blonde as he stowed it in his pocket.
Thelma felt something snap.
“We must be at the most popular place in London,” she said. Onstage, the chorus girls had filed off the stage, making way for a lithe couple in Spanish costumes. Thelma gave an empty laugh. “It feels like I’ve been gone longer than a few months. Why, I don’t know half the people in here.”
“That’s not true,” said Duke. “Betty Lawson-Johnson is just on the other side of the dance floor. We’ll go say hello.”
Thelma turned to Nancy, smiling. “But still. So many new faces, don’t you think? So many pretty faces.” She leaned back in her chair. “G, who do you think is the prettiest girl here?”
G chuckled. “Steady on. That’s a dangerous question.”
Nancy grinned. “You can’t say it’s Thelma or me—that’s cheating,” she said. “But if you don’t say it’s Thelma or me, then you’re beastly.”
“Duke, who do you think is the prettiest girl here?” said Thelma, reaching for her glass of champagne.
Duke puffed at his cigarette, frowning.
“I think it’s that girl over there. The blonde one, in the gray dress,” she continued. She smirked and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “Duke thinks she’s pretty. He’s been staring at her all evening.”
Duke reddened, and Thelma laughed. “Oh, come now. It’s just a bit of fun,” she said. She finished her drink, enjoying the petty rush of power. She locked eyes with her husband: he looked away and drained his glass of champagne.
“You think she’s pretty, don’t you, G?” said Thelma.
“Who, her? Yes, very pretty.” G waved for a waiter to bring another round.
The Woman Before Wallis Page 8
