The Woman Before Wallis

by Bryn Turnbull

News was received yesterday that Lord Furness will return to Nairobi on Friday. Yesterday’s issue of the East African Standard contains the following notice over his signature:

  To all whom it may concern,

  Take notice that from and after the 24th day of January 1932, Mr. A. Rattray ceased to be the white hunter to my safari, and from that date he has no authority to order anything on my account.

  Thelma closed her eyes.

  A scandal, then.

  Wallis rested her hand on Thelma’s forearm.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “If there’s anything—”

  Thelma looked up: David, Ernest and Piers were silent, waiting for an explanation.

  She folded the newspaper so that the article was concealed from view. Wallis could tell them.

  “Thank you, Wallis,” she said, “but it looks as though the matter is settled, doesn’t it? Would you excuse me?”

  She tucked the newspaper under her arm and left as though she was removing a contaminant. Not that it mattered, really; if it was in The Guardian, it would be in the Mail and The Telegraph and The Times.

  She went into the drawing room. At this hour, it was blissfully empty: blinding sunlight streamed through the windows, bleaching the wood-paneled walls. She sat down, trembling, on the piano bench and read the story through a second time.

  The wedding took place while Lord Furness was away shooting... So Averill hadn’t even tried to talk him round.

  “Stupid girl,” she said. She was too numb to be angry.

  Thelma looked up as the door creaked open. David came in, barring the dogs from entering with his foot.

  “Wallis told me,” he said as he shut the dogs out. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”

  Thelma began to cry and David pulled her into his arms.

  “She could have warned me,” she said. “What am I to tell people?”

  David kissed the top of her head, his breath ruffling her hair in a sigh. “Well...you could tell them that it’s not really to do with you anymore, is it?”

  Thelma pulled away. “How so?”

  “You’ve divorced him, haven’t you? You’re not part of their family anymore, darling.”

  Thelma frowned, hearing echoes of her furious last conversation with Duke.

  “Of course they’re family,” she said, “I’ve a son with Duke, don’t I? And Averill and Dickie...they mean the world to me.”

  “Still? You decided to leave Furness. You’ve still got your son by him, of course, but you’ve no claims over Averill anymore. No more than Duke has a claim over you.”

  “You think it’s that easy, do you, signing a piece of paper and wiping my hands of them all? I can’t—turn off my feelings, not when she’s made such a bloody mess—”

  David ran his hand down her arm. “I’m trying to help you see it from their perspective. Perhaps they thought it kinder not to pull you in.” He kissed her forehead. “And it is kinder, isn’t it? You don’t need the attention. It’s Furness’s place to handle it, not yours.”

  Thelma sank back down onto the piano bench.

  “I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen.” She reread the terse statement Duke had made: not a word of congratulation or conciliation—not even an attempt to make good to the reporters. She could feel Duke’s anger on the newsprint, breaking like a storm over water.

  Perhaps Duke and Averill might come to common ground, if the wounds they made in these first few days of scandal didn’t cut too deep.

  “I need to speak with him before he does something he’ll regret,” said Thelma, wiping her eyes. “May I use the telephone?”

  David handed her a handkerchief. “I really would prefer if you didn’t,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do while they’re in Africa, and even if you did get hold of Furness, what would you possibly say?”

  Thelma nodded, folding the handkerchief over to find a dry spot. He was right, of course: short of making the journey to Africa herself, there was nothing she could do. And Duke needed time, too, to think his way past anger.

  David sat with Thelma a moment longer.

  “You know, we’re being terrible hosts, holed up alone like this,” he said. It was a half-hearted attempt at a joke, and Thelma laughed, more for his benefit than hers. “I know it’s rotten luck, but there’s really nothing to be done. Take a moment to compose yourself, darling, then come back and join us.”

  He walked to the door; Thelma could hear the terriers on the other side.

  “Do you really think I don’t count as family anymore?” she said. Despite the divorce, the notion seemed unbearable.

  David paused. “What an odd thing to say,” he said. “If I’m being entirely honest, no. I would say your duties to the family are over, and I would expect Furness feels the same. You’ve no longer any obligation toward them beyond civility. Make it a clean break, for your sake and theirs.”

  Thelma pursed her lips, weighing the implications of David’s words.

  The clock on the mantel chimed, a genteel nudge, and David glanced at the door. “I really ought to return to our guests. You’ll be all right, won’t you? I’ll talk to Osborne about arranging the picnic myself.”

  “Of course. I’ll be right in.”

  David smiled. “Good,” he said, and left the room.

  Thelma folded the handkerchief neatly on the piano bench.

  A clean break. It was a simple way—too simple—to sum up six years of marriage. Easier said than done, but David had never been married, nor had he ever truly broken from his own past. Freda Dudley Ward was still a constant friend—could he cast her aside so lightly?

  There was a small desk in the corner of the drawing room; Thelma opened the topmost drawer and pulled out two sheets of stationery. She wrote a short letter of congratulations on one sheet and a statement on another, then sealed them into separate envelopes. Before she returned to the drawing room, she handed two envelopes to Osborne for the morning post: one addressed to Mrs. Averill Rattray, the other to The Manchester Guardian relaying her wholehearted support for the happy couple.

  Forty-Three

  October 21, 1934

  New York, USA

  She had been dreaming of cameras. The click, click of the shutter—a noise you heard when you were close enough to make it out over the blank explosion of the flashbulb, smoke rising into ether. It was a noise she’d loved, once: posing for an artist in Los Angeles, the feel of silk on skin, in the reckless days after her separation from Junior. Following the shine of the lens, laughing, as David lifted his sleek little Leica to take a photograph of her next to the swimming pool at the Fort. The shutter had been kind, then, the curiosity of the lens flattering—but here, the cameras flocked like wasps, their blank gaze cold, the metallic click multiplied like whispers into a roar as regular as a heartbeat.

  Thelma stared up at the silk canopy of her four-poster bed. It was eight in the morning on Sunday, a blessed break from the trial, but Thelma knew that, even at this early hour, if she were to twitch open the curtains she would see reporters, clustered in twos and threes on the sidewalk. They’d been summoned by Burkan who, following Gloria’s disastrous visit to Old Westbury, planned to make an announcement.

  She pressed a call button for Elise, listening for sounds of life from the other bedrooms. The house was quiet now, but it wouldn’t remain so for long: the walls were too thin to accommodate the individual privacies of eight people living under the same roof.

  Harry and Edith, Friedel and Margarita, Consuelo and Benny, and Thelma and Gloria were all staying in the little town house, and the strain of presenting a united front, moving from the house to the courthouse and back as though on a fixed track, was beginning to show.

  Last night Thelma had heard, seeping through the shared wall like a bleed, Harry and Edith talking about Gloria’s trip to Old Westbury. They
were beginning to lose hope—so was Thelma, though she’d never admit it. No, Thelma would go downstairs this morning and help steady Gloria for the cameras.

  She was pulled from her thoughts by a gentle tap at the door. Elise, carrying a silver breakfast tray, walked in.

  “Good morning, my lady.”

  Thelma shifted up onto the pillows as Elise set the breakfast tray down on Thelma’s lap: toast with jam, coffee in a pewter pot and a soft-boiled egg.

  “Thank you. Any mail?” asked Thelma, tapping the top of her egg with a spoon.

  Elise pulled a small envelope from her apron pocket. It was addressed but not postmarked: hand-delivered, then, likely an invitation to dinner. She’d received a few since her arrival, sent by acquaintances from her school days, sniffing out news of the trial. She’d rejected them all.

  Thelma read the note. “Please send my regrets,” she said, tucking the note back into the envelope and sliding it under her plate. She poured a cup of coffee. “Anything from London?”

  Elise’s professional smile softened. “I’m afraid not,” she said.

  Thelma poured a measure of cream into the cup. It wasn’t lost on Elise, Thelma knew, that David hadn’t written in over a week.

  She glanced at her bedside table, where two small teddy bears, their cheap green fabric worn from frequent travel, sat propped against the base of a lamp. They slumped together, shoulders touching, glass eyes glinting in the morning sun.

  Thelma lifted the breakfast tray from her lap, depositing it on the pillow beside her.

  “Elise, would you bring me my dressing gown?” she said.

  * * *

  Minutes later, Thelma was on the telephone in Gloria’s study. The small room had the air of being abandoned, with old stacks of papers piled in a corner, untouched since the trial began. Harry, it seemed, was using the room as a refuge: a heavy-bottomed ashtray stood on the writing desk, a half-smoked stogie stubbed out in the dust.

  Thelma had instructed a nasal-voiced operator to put her through to London and the line had gone dead as the operator tried the connection. She sank into an armchair, arranging the folds of her dressing gown.

  The line clicked back to life.

  “Go ahead, please.”

  “Thelma?”

  “Wallis. I hope I’m not interrupting?”

  The sound of Wallis’s voice was clear and comforting across the wire. “Not at all, Ernest and I were just sitting down to tea. How’s Gloria?”

  “She’s coping. You’ve been following the papers?”

  “Religiously. It will all turn out in the end, I know it.”

  “How are things in London?” she said. “How’s David?”

  Wallis waited a beat too long before answering. “He’s perfectly fine. Ernest and I were out to dinner with him just the other night. Quaglino’s. They’ve the most divine roast, even David managed a full plate and you know how picky he can be.”

  Thelma’s heart sank at the forced levity in her voice. “Has he—taken up with anyone else?”

  Once again, Wallis hesitated. “No,” she said. “I won’t lie to you, he’s become rather—restless—but it’s only for missing you. He talks about you constantly, of course.”

  Restless. According to Wallis, David hadn’t strayed—but “yet” was implicit in her words.

  The longer Thelma was gone, the more likely he was to find someone to pique his interest. Some dull debutante, no doubt, pushed in his direction by a grasping father...

  “Darling, listen to me,” said Wallis. “I know you’re nervous but really, there’s no reason to be. You asked me to look after him for you and I am. His heart is entirely yours. If you don’t believe me, telephone him yourself.”

  The thought of checking up on David made Thelma cringe.

  Over the line, Wallis’s exhale sounded more like a sigh than anything else. “Darling, I’ve got to go but please stop worrying. You’ve enough on your plate without creating fresh intrigues.” She paused. “He’s likely going to drop in for a cocktail with Ernest later this evening. Is there anything you’d like me to tell him?”

  Thelma cleared her throat. “Tell him—the bears send their love,” she said.

  “The bears send their love,” Wallis repeated, and the sentiment sounded empty repeated back over the wire. “I’ll tell him, Thelma. Perhaps I’ll remind him how good you look in that gray Schiaparelli, he’ll like that.”

  Wallis rang off and Thelma replaced the receiver in its cradle. The conversation hadn’t been reassuring. Thelma had been able to overlook his dalliances so long as they took place in other cities or towns, but London had always been hers: London and Fort Belvedere. The quiet Berkshire hills where they could play at being husband and wife, and the restless city where they didn’t have to pretend at all.

  She tiptoed down the empty hallway, listening to the sound of whispered conversations behind bedroom doors.

  The washroom was bone white, porcelain tiles on the floor and creeping up the walls, white sink and toilet and tub, pillowy towels on towel racks. A utilitarian room, utterly unlike the crowded excess of the rest of the house. She turned on the tap, which groaned before surrendering water, and splashed her face, welcoming the shock of the cold.

  The trial had taken an obvious toll on Gloria, visible in her gaunt cheeks, her too-thin frame—but now, looking in the medicine cabinet mirror, Thelma couldn’t deny that she, too, was being affected by the strain of it all. Like Gloria, she’d lost weight: her complexion looked sallow in a ghastly way that, thankfully, she could hide under powder. Powder, however, had the unintended effect of settling into lines, conferring years to her complexion that she hadn’t earned through work or illness. She wet the towel and pressed it against the delicate, dark skin under her eyes. Unlike Gloria, Thelma wasn’t taking anything to calm her nerves, but if things continued as they were, she would need to find a doctor willing to give her a prescription.

  She returned to her room and dressed, then went downstairs.

  The noise of the reporters outside was louder in the sitting room, a low murmur that the front door couldn’t quite block out. The room’s heavy velvet curtains hadn’t yet been drawn back and the lamps were lit, giving Thelma the uneasy impression that she was living underground.

  Gloria, dressed for church, paced in front of the empty fireplace. She turned as Thelma entered, her hands clasped around a cup of coffee.

  “Mr. Burkan should be here soon,” she said. “I hope the reporters don’t tire of waiting for him. Perhaps I should go out and say something myself.”

  “He’ll be here,” said Thelma. “The reporters want to hear what he has to say. They’ll wait all morning if they have to.”

  Moments later, the reporters began to shout. Thelma peeked through the curtain and watched them surround Burkan’s car. He stepped out, waving an impatient hand as he made his way to the front door.

  “Five minutes! Five minutes with my client, then I’ll come speak to you,” he said, his voice rising above the din. The butler opened the door and Burkan came in on a wave of sound, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.

  “Pack of buzzards,” he said to no one in particular, stuffing the handkerchief back into his breast pocket. He came into the sitting room and pulled out a set of typewritten notes from his briefcase, frowning as he leafed from page to page.

  “Mrs. Vanderbilt, today we turn the tide,” he said. “This will be entirely painless, I assure you. You won’t need to answer any questions.”

  “What if I want to talk to them?” said Gloria.

  “If you feel you must, tell them that your visit with Little Gloria yesterday went well. You’re happier than you’ve ever been,” Burkan said. “Beyond that, I don’t want you answering any questions. We don’t want this turning into a press conference. Lady Furness, I hope you might join us outside. Show of support.”r />
  “Of course.” She gave Gloria’s arm a reassuring squeeze. “Ready?”

  Gloria nodded.

  Burkan opened the door and the noise hit them: reporters shouting, photographers holding their cameras aloft in the blind hope of taking the right photo. Thelma smiled, automatically—then, realizing the circumstances might warrant something different, she arranged her features into what she hoped was an expression of defiant confidence.

  Burkan raised his hand and the reporters hushed, pencils poised on notepads.

  “Thank you all for coming,” he said. He tucked one hand into his pocket and gripped his typewritten statement with the other. “As you all know, my client, Mrs. Vanderbilt, had the opportunity to visit her daughter, Gloria Vanderbilt, at her aunt’s home in Old Westbury yesterday.” He looked up, his gray eyes gimlet above the rim of his glasses. “On speaking to Mrs. Vanderbilt on her return, it has become clear that there is no possibility of a settlement with Gertrude Whitney. No possibility of a settlement,” he repeated slowly, pausing to allow the scribbling reporters to catch up. “As soon as Mrs. Whitney leaves the stand, I will begin to lay out our defense by subpoenaing some of Mrs. Whitney’s more bohemian acquaintances from her work as an artist in Greenwich Village. These include Donald Hunter, a model who spent last summer at Mrs. Whitney’s camp at Sabattis.”

  Thelma kept her expression impassive. Donald Hunter? It wasn’t a name Thelma had heard before.

  “Also under subpoena,” Burkan continued, adjusting his glasses, “are Frederick Soldwedel, an artist; Frederick Hazeltine, a sculptor; Louis Sloden, a professional dancer; Thomas Meighan, an actor; and George Coleman—some Cody, Wyoming cowboy.” He looked up. “We will be beginning our cross-examination of Mrs. Whitney as early as tomorrow and look forward to coming to a better understanding of Mrs. Whitney’s character and her involvement with the bohemian arts movement. That’s all.”

  The reporters began to shout but Burkan turned, holding out an arm to escort Gloria back indoors.

  They returned to the sitting room, where Consuelo and Harry had been watching the announcement from out the window: Consuelo had opened the curtains, and Thelma felt lighter for that alone. She watched the reporters drift off, some lingering on the sidewalk over notepads to finish their scribbling.