The Woman Before Wallis

by Bryn Turnbull

  She’d worn a periwinkle dress she’d borrowed from a friend—it didn’t suit her but she couldn’t afford a dress of her own. Not that it had mattered: Thelma had found it all wonderfully bohemian, running away in a borrowed gown. She recalled the church and the round-cheeked priest; the unseasonable cold of that May morning, which left a thin scur of frost on the daffodils in the churchyard.

  “We didn’t even make it through the honeymoon,” she said. She closed her eyes, recalling the fragment of glass lodged in the wall behind the dining table in their apartment, the mark in the wallpaper after she’d pulled it out with shaking hands. “He hid it well, at first, but his composure began to slip. Before long, it was all just—routine.

  “I stayed with him. What choice did I have? My parents had disowned me. Mamma was furious that I hadn’t waited to find someone who could take care of me, but I hadn’t bothered to stop and think. I was in love...”

  She looked up, catching Averill’s eye as Averill threw a heavy blanket over the mare’s back.

  “Gloria, thank God, stood by me. After I miscarried, she gave me the courage I needed to leave him. If she hadn’t been there, I might still be in that apartment. Or worse.”

  Averill finished fastening the horse blanket. She walked toward the stall door, running her hand companionably along the mare’s mane, passing so close to Thelma that the hem of her jacket lifted with the movement.

  “You love him,” Thelma continued, following Averill into an adjoining stall where a smaller horse lifted its head in welcome. “I loved Junior. Or I thought I did—I don’t know which is worse, really. But I learned a lesson: no one should come so completely between you and your family. Even if you love him. If you were to end up in trouble and you’ve cut all ties... If he’s all you’ve got in the world and he turns against you, the world becomes a very dark place. Believe me, Averill.”

  Averill lifted a limp bridle from a hook on the wall and fitted it over the horse’s head. She pulled the buckles tight, testing the pressure by tugging on the rein. The horse moved with the tether, a smooth sweep of its head.

  “I’m sorry about what happened to you,” she said finally. “But Andy isn’t Junior.”

  She spoke like her father: firmly, matter-of-fact; her mind already set. She opened the stall door and Thelma stepped aside as Averill led the horse out.

  “I love Andy. I trust him,” she said. “If I’m making a mistake—and I don’t think I am—then with all due respect, Thelma, it’s mine to make.” She leaned forward, and kissed Thelma, her lips warm against Thelma’s chilled cheek. “You know how much you mean to me. I hope you’ll still be my friend, once all this is over.”

  It was a clear, gentle dismissal, and Thelma stepped aside. Her journey to Burrough Court had been wasted. Thelma could see that now. She ought to have known that Averill was wiser than Thelma had been back then; that her decision wasn’t one of impulse but of deep, considered feeling.

  Averill tugged on the horse’s rein and she led him down the length of the stable toward the paddock, horse and rider walking side by side.

  * * *

  The motorcar idled in front of Duke’s town house, the building’s austere gray looming against the iron clouds. After delivering her superfluous message to Averill, Thelma had returned to London in silence, the twin relationships that tied her to Averill—stepmother and friend—plaguing her. Did her position as one give her the right to violate the confidence of the other?

  She walked up the front steps and lifted the heavy door-knocker before she had the chance to lose her nerve.

  “My lady,” said Williams, with some surprise. Thelma hadn’t come to Arlington Place since the divorce: it was still too raw, too presumptuous, to move in and out of Duke’s life with any sort of ease.

  “Is Duke in?” she asked.

  “His Lordship is in the study. I shall let him know you’ve arrived.”

  “Please don’t trouble yourself,” she said, and pushed past before he could protest.

  She knocked on the door to Duke’s study and he called out a muffled invitation. Thelma opened the door and Duke, sitting at his desk with a set of spectacles in his hand, looked up.

  “Thelma.” He frowned, stowing the spectacles in his desk drawer. “To what do I owe...?”

  Thelma inched into the room as the door clicked shut behind her. “I’m sorry to come unannounced. I hope I’m not intruding—”

  “Not at all,” said Duke, inviting Thelma to sit down. “A few final things to sort before we sail.” He sat, too, pulling the crease of his trouser-leg straight.

  Thelma hesitated. Not for the first time, her ire rose. Averill ought to be telling Duke this herself, not foisting the duty off onto a messenger.

  “I’ve come to talk about Averill,” she said. “I understand you’re taking her with you to Kenya.”

  “I am,” said Duke. “She’s quite looking forward to it. Dickie’s going to join us when his term is up—wants to try his hand at a hippopotamus. My money’s on Averill, personally... Have you eaten? Could ring for tea.”

  “No, thank you,” said Thelma, her heart sinking at Duke’s attempt at casual conversation. He had no clue. She couldn’t stand to look him in the eye now that it came to it. Ending their marriage, somehow, had been easier. “It’s none of my business, really,” she said. “Averill’s made me promise not to tell you, but I feel you ought to know. I couldn’t forgive myself if you went off without the facts...”

  “I’d know a damn sight quicker if you’d just come out with it,” said Duke lightly. “What’s this about?”

  Thelma closed her eyes. “It’s Averill,” she said. “Once she arrives in Africa she intends to marry Andrew Rattray. I told her the idea was madness, but she seems quite set...”

  She faltered into silence, her pulse beating a frantic, instinctive tattoo against her throat.

  “How dare you come into my home with this disgusting falsehood?”

  The room closed in; she twitched her fingers against her handbag.

  “I’m trying—please, Duke, I’m trying to help. I just came from Burrough Court, and she’s—”

  “Let me remind you, Thelma, that you forfeited all rights to my children when you left me,” said Duke, his voice low. “But now you want to play stepmother? I don’t know if it’s cruelty, ignorance or pure selfishness that’s brought you here today, but I won’t hear another word of it.”

  “I came because I love her,” she said, “If you can’t see that I’m trying to help—she’s going to ruin her life!”

  “Let’s not pretend you’ve ever given a thought to Averill,” Duke shot back. “You were her stepmother for years, and you’ve never once acted like it. Now you want to play the parent? A bit late for all that now.”

  Thelma was taken aback by his bitterness. “That’s not fair,” she said. “When you were away with your girlfriends, who did she call for advice, for companionship? Me, Duke—I’ve always been there for her, in what way I could—”

  Duke snapped. He slammed his fist against the desk, the noise alone making Thelma flinch. “You don’t think I know my own daughter?” he roared. “I raised that girl, on my own—despite you coming in and out of her life like you were going around a revolving door—and you’re telling me I don’t know her? How dare you insinuate—I don’t believe it!”

  Thelma could feel the fight leave her. If he could only set aside his anger—

  “If you would just listen—” she said.

  Duke stepped forward, his face red. “How dare you try to put a rift between me and my children? Get out! Get out or I’ll throw you out!”

  Thelma turned, tears falling as she fled the study.

  Forty-One

  October 20, 1934

  Long Island, USA

  Close as it was to New York City, Thelma found the endless swath of forest on Long Islan
d incongruous, where the tangle of trees and shrubs lining the parkway stood in thick opposition to the concrete order of Manhattan’s skyscrapers. She’d come this way before as a young woman, on trips to large, effortless mansions owned by friends with far wealthier parents. She recalled driving past brown-brick monstrosities and Stanford Whites, the buildings mere dots at the end of long, wide lanes, gripping her seat in the hope that, one day, she too might be entitled to this new-world splendor.

  This wasn’t a social visit, although Thelma, Gloria and Consuelo, sitting side by side in the back of Gloria’s Rolls Royce, were dressed as though they were out for an autumn picnic. Thelma looked at the court order in Gloria’s hand, creased under the pressure of her brittle fingers. On Monday, Burkan had asked Justice Carew for a cease-fire, requesting permission for Gloria to visit her daughter, sequestered away in Gertrude Whitney’s Old Westbury mansion. Carew, to Burkan’s relief and Gloria’s trepidation, had granted it.

  “What if she doesn’t want to see me?” Gloria had said before they set out that morning, waving off the butler’s attempts to help her with her jacket.

  Burkan took Gloria’s jacket from the butler and shook it open. “It’s not about what she wants—it’s about what’s necessary. Gertrude’s had Little Gloria all to herself since the trial began. Who knows what she’s been telling her? Children can be so impressionable.” He settled the tweed over Gloria’s shoulders, and Thelma could see that the jacket fell looser than it ought. “Little Gloria will be testifying soon, and we don’t want her to start spouting some song and dance from Kieslich. You’re to remind her how much you love her. Make her realize she wants to come home.”

  Gloria turned. “You don’t really expect he’ll ask her to testify?” she said.

  “I think he will,” said Burkan gently. “And if so, I don’t want Gertrude Whitney’s voice, or your mother’s, or that damned nurse’s in her head. I want her to think about you.”

  “But why there? Why at Gertrude’s house?”

  Thelma and Burkan exchanged glances. Gloria knew the reason as well as anybody else—along with letters of support or condemnation, Gloria had been receiving ransom notes, arriving like daggers in the mailbox, for the past four days. Horrible, typewritten letters threatening to shoot Little Gloria, to kidnap her in broad daylight and extract what they could of the Vanderbilt fortune.

  “Likely the work of a crank,” they’d been told by the detective who’d been assigned to handle the threats. But Little Gloria had been under constant police surveillance since then: a state of affairs that had done nothing to calm Gloria’s frayed nerves. Under Justice Carew’s guidance, Little Gloria had been taken to Gertrude’s home in Old Westbury and, with Gloria’s blessing, Gertrude had hired a complement of private detectives.

  Moving Little Gloria out of the city had been the right thing to do—even without the threatening letters, the trial was attracting too much for any child—but now, traveling to Gertrude’s mansion in the suburbs, Thelma felt as though they were crossing into enemy territory.

  Gertrude’s house was located on top of a hill, and the Rolls Royce purred as it climbed the subtle elevation of the drive. Columns of policemen flanked the final mile of the drive: they turned silently to watch the motorcar’s progress, guns visible in holsters, faces hidden beneath the brims of their caps.

  Gloria gripped Thelma’s hand.

  Thelma was furious. She’d expected some show of security, but this police cordon was too much. Did Gertrude expect Gloria to snatch her daughter back in broad daylight?

  Gertrude’s home was immense: a self-indulgent dream of a farmstead, white clapboard walls and red shingles, larger than any rural home Thelma had ever seen. What would they say, those farmwives following Gertrude and Gloria’s trial, if they knew that Gertrude lived in a mockery of their modest lives?

  The front door opened and a young man in a gray suit came down the redbrick steps. He didn’t smile as he held out his hand to Gloria.

  “Mrs. Vanderbilt, I’m Barklie Henry, Mrs. Whitney’s son-in-law,” he said. He was tall, with a broad, almost Grecian face. Had he been smiling, Thelma would have thought him handsome. “Mrs. Whitney sends her regrets that she’s not here to greet you in person.”

  Gloria’s hand tightened on Thelma’s arm. The more time Thelma spent at court, the more she resented Gertrude Whitney’s attitude: her callous entitlement, her haughty outrage masked as courtesy. Barklie Henry could apologize all he wanted, but he knew as well as they did that Gertrude’s absence was mandated as part of the court order that allowed Gloria to visit her daughter—as was Justice Carew’s stipulation that no lawyers were to be present.

  “Thank you, Mr. Henry,” said Gloria. She looked at Henry’s outstretched hand. Realizing she wouldn’t take it, Henry let it fall back to his side, his arm swinging with awkward bravado. “How is my daughter?”

  “I don’t know whether it’s best for you to see her just yet,” said Henry. “I told her you were coming to visit and, well, she lost her temper. Locked herself in her room.” Henry leaned close, with a sigh that fell short of camaraderie. “You know how difficult children can be, Mrs. Vanderbilt. Perhaps you’d be best to return another day, when she’s had time to consider...”

  As Henry made his excuses, Gloria shrank farther into her overlarge jacket, her shoulders collapsing under the effort she’d made to come so far in the first place.

  “Mr. Henry, this meeting was arranged a week ago,” said Thelma. “If you’ve not given Little Gloria enough notice, that’s no fault of ours.” She snatched Gloria’s handbag from her unresisting grasp and rifled through it, pulling out the creased envelope Gloria had been clutching in the car. “We have a court order.”

  They walked into a wood-lined entrance hallway where a butler should have been standing at the ready. Good, thought Thelma, wondering if Gertrude had sent the staff away for the day. Fewer complications.

  Henry caught up with them as they reached the staircase, his face flushed more with embarrassment than effort.

  “I understand, Mrs. Vanderbilt, that this must be a disappointment,” he said, “but if you’d only listen, she’s very distressed—”

  “And whose fault is that?” Consuelo replied. “Policemen crawling about the place like ants—what child wouldn’t be frightened? I bet you told her we were coming to roast her on a spit.”

  Henry flushed redder still, his outrage spilling out in spluttered bursts.

  Thelma continued up the stairs. At the top, Gloria paused, planting her hand on the newel post to catch her breath.

  “I’m fine,” she said in a low voice, as Consuelo and Henry bickered below. She nodded down the long hallway. “It’s at the far end—Gloria’s room,” she said, and put her hand on Thelma’s arm once more for support.

  They walked down the hallway and Thelma wondered again at the deserted house. Was it for her benefit or theirs, that Gertrude had emptied the house of any staff that might leak details of the meeting to the press? If it went well, it wasn’t in Gertrude’s interest for the papers to know about it—but if the meeting went poorly? If Little Gloria was as distraught as Henry claimed?

  In that case, Gertrude’s discretion would have done Gloria a very large favor.

  Gloria stopped in front of a door with a brass knob, indistinguishable from the others along the hallway. She stared at it, her eyes wide, but didn’t knock. Thelma could see her chest rising and falling, too quickly, too lightly.

  Henry and Consuelo had reached the top of the stairs. Fearing that Henry might try to stop them, Thelma knocked.

  The sound spurred Gloria to movement. She cleared her throat, resting her fingers gently on the handle.

  “Gloria? Darling? It’s me. It’s Mummy.”

  The response was immediate: a piercing, panicked scream. Gloria backed away from the door as though burnt.

  “No! I don’t want
to see you, I don’t—don’t—don’t kill me, don’t kill me! Don’t open the door—don’t open it! She’ll kill me!”

  Thelma stared, frozen by the sheer terror in Little Gloria’s voice. This wasn’t the sound of a child’s tantrum: Little Gloria screamed as though she expected her mother to break down the door with a knife in hand.

  The scream subsided, and Gloria faltered. She dropped her purse, her legs buckling as Barklie Henry rushed forward to catch her.

  Gloria looked at Thelma, her face ashen. “Kill her?” she whispered.

  “Who told her to say that?” said Consuelo, looking at Henry with incandescent rage. “Where did she hear that?”

  Supporting Gloria in his arms, Henry shook his head. “I told you, she’s not in the right mood—”

  Thelma tried the handle, her shock transforming into outrage. The door was locked from the inside, and she thought once more of Gertrude emptying the house, panic rising in her chest. They had to see Little Gloria. If she truly believed such monstrous things, their case was doomed; but they could set it to rights—if only Little Gloria would see reason—

  “Who else is in there?” said Consuelo.

  “A nurse,” said Henry. “Not Miss Kieslich—someone new. Gertrude hired her a few days ago.”

  Another decision made without Gloria’s permission; another excuse for Gertrude to exert her influence over Little Gloria’s well-being. Thelma pounded on the door.

  “Nurse, this is a court order,” she shouted, attempting to make herself heard over Little Gloria’s screams. “I demand you open this door at once!”

  Another scream “—No!—” and then Little Gloria was silent.

  The doorknob rattled. “I can’t!” came a small, harried voice—the nurse. “She took the key and threw it into the fire!” The knob shook once more, as though in illustration.

  “Outrageous,” spat Consuelo, her brittle voice a reminder for Thelma to maintain her composure. She turned to Henry. “You must have a locksmith, a spare key?”