Another Woman’s Husband

by Gill Paul

  The following afternoon, Wallis lay on Mary’s bed as they dissected the evening.

  ‘I danced three dances with Carter Osburn,’ Wallis said, making a face. ‘I’m lucky to have any toes left.’

  Mary smiled. ‘He’s so sweet on you, he would be your beau in a heartbeat.’

  Wallis wrinkled her nose. ‘I like his car . . .’ Carter drove a Packard. ‘But he’s a little on the short side, don’t you think? And he never stops talking.’

  ‘What about Arthur Stump? He’s tall and silent. I rode in his Ford to the country club and thought he was a good driver.’

  ‘Yeah, Arthur’s nice. But I’m not sure he has much gumption. He’s what my mother would call “a big drink of water”.’

  ‘You sound disappointed, Wallie. Was the evening not as magical as you expected?’

  Wallis tilted her head to one side and considered. ‘I guess I wanted to fall in love and there wasn’t anyone to fall in love with. Don’t you agree? They’re all nice boys, but none of them is it.’

  Mary laughed. ‘We’re only eighteen; I don’t think we qualify as old maids yet.’

  Over the social season, from December through April, they attended at least one ball, dinner party, luncheon or tea dance every week, and both Mary and Wallis collected a coterie of male admirers: Tony Biddle, Reggie Hutchison, Bryan Dancy, Harvey Rowland and many more. Sometimes the girls invited a couple of boys to Mary’s house after dinner to have a cool drink and a chat. Wallis was in her element on such occasions, and Mary enjoyed them too. She had become more confident about talking to boys now she spent more time in their company, and she tried to follow Wallis’s lead and ask them about sports, cars, or what career they intended to pursue. Mary’s parents left them unchaperoned in the living room, but if they got too noisy, or if the boys stayed past curfew time, her father would bang on the ceiling with his shoe.

  It was traditional for each debutante’s family to throw a coming-out party for her. Mary’s mother hosted a stylish luncheon at the Baltimore Country Club, but although Wallis pleaded with Uncle Sol, he refused to pay for an event in her honour.

  ‘I can’t sanction the expenditure in wartime,’ he said, and would not be moved, even by his niece’s tears.

  Wallis and Mary seldom thought about the war. Europe was a long way away, so Uncle Sol’s argument that it was ‘no time for festivities’ carried little weight.

  ‘It’s not even America’s war,’ Wallis grumbled. ‘He really is insufferable.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mary reassured her. ‘You’re the most popular debutante even without throwing a party, and everyone agrees you are the best dressed. Millicent Beacham was positively green with envy over your cloth-of-gold gown.’

  ‘Millicent?’ Wallis raised one eyebrow with a wicked glint. ‘I wouldn’t rate her taste in fashion, would you? That gown with all the layers made her look like a prize cabbage at a country show.’

  Mary laughed so hard she choked and Wallis had to pat her on the back until she stopped spluttering.

  In the summer of 1915, as the girls were making plans for the start of a new social season, Wallis’s paternal grandmother had a fall, and a few weeks later she passed away. The family went into formal mourning, which meant that Wallis would have to wear black and would not be allowed to socialise for six months. She was bitterly disappointed to think of all the balls and dinners taking place without her.

  ‘I’ll tell you every last detail,’ Mary promised. ‘But it won’t be the same without you. It’s going to be a very tedious winter.’

  Later that day, after Wallis had gone home, Mary overheard her parents talking to her elder sister Buckie in the dining room. She paused at the door to listen.

  ‘I hope Mary will make some new friends this winter,’ Buckie was saying. ‘Wallis is clearly not a suitable companion.’

  ‘I agree,’ her mother said. ‘It could even affect our chances of marrying her into a good family. What do you think, Henry?’

  ‘Quite,’ her father muttered, his usual response when he did not want to be drawn into a discussion.

  Mary burst into the room in a temper. ‘How dare you say such things about poor Wallis! It’s not her fault her father and her stepfather died. She and her mother don’t have much money but the family are perfectly respectable.’

  ‘The family might be,’ Buckie said, ‘but Wallis herself is just a bit . . . disreputable. I hear she flirts with all the boys and strings them along like pet pooches. It’s not fair to treat anyone like that.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Mary shouted, her fists clenched by her side. For the first time since childhood she felt the urge to punch her sister, hard.

  ‘Darling, she wears rouge,’ her mother said. ‘Nice girls don’t wear make-up. You know that. It sends out all the wrong signals.’

  ‘It’s only because she has especially pale cheeks. You hardly notice it.’

  Her mother sniffed, clearly thinking otherwise. ‘We can’t stop you seeing her, of course, but I hope you will treat this season as a chance to make new friends. Perhaps some of them will have eligible brothers. Wouldn’t that be lovely?’

  Mary stood with her hands on her hips and declared passionately: ‘I will never abandon Wallis. Never.’

  Then she turned and stomped from the room, slamming the door hard behind her.

  Chapter 7

  Baltimore, April 1916

  Dearest Mary,

  You’re not going to believe this, but IT has happened. You know what I mean by IT? I’ve fallen head over heels in love.

  Mary gasped as she read the beginning of the letter. Wallis had only left a week earlier to visit her cousin Corinne in Pensacola, Florida. How could she have fallen in love already?

  I know you won’t believe me. I can’t believe it myself as I’ve only known him for thirty-six hours, but I knew straight away when he arrived for luncheon yesterday. He walked into Corinne’s living room and I felt giddy and more alive than I’ve ever felt before. They say your heart skips a beat, but mine skipped so many beats it’s a wonder I didn’t collapse.

  Mary read the letter quickly, feeling a stab in her own heart. I can’t be jealous of Wallie, she thought. One of us had to fall in love first, and I always knew it would be her.

  I guess I’d better tell you all about him so you can see that I haven’t clean lost my mind. His name is Earl Winfield Spencer, and he’s a pilot who flies Curtiss N-91 planes out of the airbase here. It’s unbelievably brave and clever of him because everyone says they are devilish tricky to control. He’s tanned and lean, with dark hair and a moustache, and intense eyes I just want to sink into. You know I’ve always liked older men, don’t you? Well, he’s twelve years older, which seems to me exactly the right amount. He’s mature and worldly but still young in his outlook.

  So he was over thirty? That seemed impossibly old to Mary.

  We talked all through luncheon and afterwards he asked if he could call for me the following afternoon. Trying to appear nonchalant, I claimed I didn’t know what plans my cousins had for me but he said he didn’t care so long as those plans included him! So he returned the following afternoon (wearing his elegant white Navy uniform with gold stripes on the shoulders) and he stayed for dinner and we talked non-stop. He says he is going to teach me to play golf. Now, you and I know that I have not the slightest smidgen of interest in the game, but what a clever excuse to spend time together without a chaperone! I can’t wait to see him again. He only left half an hour ago and I should be trying to sleep but I simply had to tell you . . .

  It’s one of her crushes, Mary thought. Like Philip Noland. Wallis couldn’t be properly in love with someone she had only met twice. But then, they had always agreed that they believed in love at first sight. Her mother said that was what it had been like for her and her father.

  You will know instantly when IT happens to you, Wallis finished her letter. It’s as different from merely liking a boy as peaches are from pickles.

>   Mary felt critical. How could Wallis be so sure? Was love really so cut and dried? Buckie was sitting in a chair on the other side of the morning room working on some embroidery.

  ‘Do you think it’s possible to be in love with someone you’ve only met twice?’ Mary asked.

  Buckie looked up. ‘Oh Lord, is Wallis in love? Who is it this time?’

  ‘He’s a pilot at Pensacola.’

  Buckie gave a little grunt. ‘I can’t see Wallis as a Navy wife. She would hate it. They get moved round the country and have to live on military bases, in identical little houses. And there are lots of rules to follow, even for the wives. Wallis is not a rules type of girl, is she?’

  Mary shrugged. ‘I suppose she could be for the right man.’

  Buckie shook her head. ‘I would never marry an airman. Those machines are death traps. I heard the fuel tank is right behind the pilot’s head, so if they crash and the fuel ignites, they don’t stand a chance. Most die outright, but if they live, they’re horribly disfigured from the burns.’

  Mary shuddered. ‘I hope she doesn’t have her heart broken by marrying someone who makes her a widow.’

  ‘She would find another man soon enough, if I know Wallis.’ Buckie returned to her needlework with pursed lips.

  All day Mary pictured Wallis on a golf course in the Florida sunshine, with a tanned officer standing behind her, leaning over to adjust her grip on the club. She wrote back with pretended enthusiasm – How incredibly glamorous he sounds! – but felt as if she had a stone lodged in her heart. All day she was moody and out of sorts, unable to force herself to join the talk at dinner and pleading a headache afterwards so she could retire to her bedroom.

  I must be a wicked person, she berated herself. Poor Wallie had a horrible winter so it’s only fair she has a bit of fun now.

  Lying fully clothed on her silk bedspread, she mulled it over and realised she was not jealous because Wallis was happy; on the contrary, she was glad of that. It was just that she was scared she was going to lose her. She would no longer be Wallis’s closest friend in the world, and that would be hard to take. But Wallis was due back in just over three weeks, and maybe she would have gotten over her airman by then.

  Wallis wrote that she was extending her stay an extra couple of weeks so she could spend more time with her beloved ‘Win’. When that period was nearly up, she decided to stay another two weeks, then one last week. With each delay, Mary felt her friend slipping further away. It was impossible to express herself in letters, impossible to say how sad she felt at the distance between them. She had many other girlfriends in Baltimore, and had been spending time with her old schoolfriend Renée du Pont, but none of them had Wallis’s sparkle.

  In early June, Wallis finally returned and she telephoned Mary straight away to ask if she might come over.

  ‘I’ve got so much to tell you,’ she gushed. ‘Things I couldn’t put into letters.’

  Within an hour they were sitting in the rocker on the back porch of the Kirks’ house sipping lemonade from tall glasses. Wallis’s skin was golden from the Florida sun and she was more animated than Mary had ever seen her, with a permanent smile on her face and joy lighting up her eyes.

  ‘I’ve had the time of my life, Mary. I never thought I would meet someone who had all the qualities I’m looking for in one package.’

  ‘Is Win wealthy?’ Mary asked. ‘That was always your top priority.’

  Wallis nodded. ‘Officers get paid plenty, and he’s bound to get promoted over the years. The Navy would provide a house for us on the base, and you get to choose your own decor. All the women are friends with each other, and there are parties at the San Carlos Hotel at weekends, with dancing and lots of liquor . . .’

  Mary interrupted. ‘You talk as if you are planning to marry him.’

  Wallis put a cautioning finger to her lips, with a mischievous glint in her eyes, then whispered: ‘He asked me a couple of weeks ago.’

  Mary gasped, dismayed. ‘But you’ve hardly known each other any time!’

  ‘I know, but I’ve never been so sure of anything.’

  ‘What did he say? Tell me everything. Did you say yes straight away?’

  Wallis giggled. ‘I told him he has to come and meet my mother, Aunt Bessie, Uncle Sol and you, and that if all of you approve he is in with a chance. You will approve, won’t you, Mary dearest?’

  ‘I’m sure I will. If you love him, I am bound to love him too.’

  During the two weeks before Win arrived in Baltimore on leave, Wallis talked about him constantly, as if relaying every single memory from their time together stopped her missing him so badly. She told Mary that they used to walk along the beach in Pensacola picking up seashells, that they went to the movies and sat in the back seat holding hands, that they would slip out of the San Carlos Hotel to sit in his Ford and kiss.

  ‘Lips open or closed?’ Mary asked, and Wallis grinned.

  ‘Definitely open.’

  Mary wore a smile that increasingly had to be forced as Wallis told her about Win’s background. ‘He was born in Chicago and graduated from Annapolis Naval Academy. He was serving in the Atlantic when he got interested in flying. All his superior officers tried to talk him out of it, but he knew it was the job for him. It’s hard to become a flyer, but as soon as he started, everyone said he was a natural.’

  ‘Isn’t it terribly dangerous?’

  ‘It is. Two men at his base died in a crash while I was there. I worry every time he takes to the air, but he says he knows his plane so well he could get out of any fix. He checks every last nut and bolt before he takes off.’

  ‘What if America joins the war?’ Mary asked. There had been talk of it since the Germans sank the passenger ship Lusitania the previous year. ‘He might have to go and fight in France.’

  Wallis shivered. ‘I would support him all the way but I hope it doesn’t come to that.’ She switched mood. ‘Oh, I can’t wait for you to meet him. I know you’re going to adore him.’

  ‘Perhaps he will have a friend for me,’ Mary suggested lightly. She had plenty of beaus that summer but all of them casual. She would have loved to describe them to Wallis but couldn’t get a word in. Besides, they sounded dull in comparison to Win; none of them were pilots.

  ‘Wouldn’t that be fun?’ Wallis laughed. ‘I’ll definitely ask.’

  Two weeks later, Win arrived, and after the couple had made a tour of the Warfield relatives, Mary was invited to meet them at the Baltimore Country Club, where they sat on a back veranda looking towards the golf course, arm in arm, like visiting royalty.

  ‘Miss Kirk,’ Win said, rising to greet her, ‘I do declare you are every bit as pretty as Wallis told me. What stunning auburn hair! Pray sit down.’ He pulled out a chair for her. ‘Can I offer you a cocktail?’

  ‘Iced tea would be perfect. Hello, Wallie.’

  Win called the waiter to place the order, requesting a bourbon on the rocks for himself, and began talking about his impressions of Baltimore. ‘How fresh the summer air is compared to Pensacola. There you can always detect a hint of jet fuel in the breeze. But down south we have dolphins playing in the Gulf at sunset, which is a sight I never tire of.’

  Mary watched him and could see right away what had appealed to Wallis. He was head and shoulders above the local boys, with their stilted conversation and gawky self-consciousness. Win was a man of the world, with laughing eyes that had little creases in the corners. Wallis was softer around him than Mary had ever seen her: girlish and winsome.

  They told her they had met Uncle Sol that morning and he had given his permission for them to wed. Mary wasn’t surprised. She imagined he would be glad it was no longer his responsibility to subsidise Wallis.

  ‘What a distinguished gent,’ Win said. ‘So refined. We’re planning to get hitched as soon as possible, probably in the fall.’

  ‘You will be my bridesmaid, won’t you, Mary?’ Wallis pleaded.

  ‘Of course! I’d love to.’<
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  They chatted about plans for the wedding, and Mary noticed that they caught eyes often, and that Win kept touching Wallis’s arm, her fingers, her hair, as if he couldn’t keep his hands off her. The thought made her blush and she fanned herself to cool her cheeks.

  ‘Will you move to Pensacola straight after the wedding?’ she asked, and Wallis said yes, adding that Mary had an open invitation.

  When she got home that evening, her mother asked what Wallis’s husband-to-be was like and all Mary could think to say was that he was ‘very charming’. She had not got a sense of his character beneath the polished veneer, but perhaps that was because she had not spent any time on her own with him. There was no question he was deeply enamoured of Wallis. Why then did Mary feel a reservation? Probably because she didn’t want to lose her friend.

  That night as she lay in bed waiting for sleep, she felt a tear sliding down her cheek, then another. So Wallis was definitely getting married, the first of their season’s debutantes to tie the knot. She was going to Pensacola in a few months’ time and she wouldn’t be back. It felt like the end of Mary’s girlhood.

  The wedding took place in Baltimore Christ Church on 8 November, just seven months after Wallis and Win had met. The bride wore a gown of white panne velvet decorated with seed pearls and carried a bouquet of white orchids and lilies of the valley. Mary and the five other bridesmaids were dressed in orchid-coloured gowns with wide blue velvet girdles. The vast church was full of the sweet, almost overpowering scent of white roses and chrysanthemums, stacked around the altar and filling every available niche. Win wore his full naval dress uniform, as did his ushers and his brother Dumaresque.

  The reception was riotous, with dinner and dancing for a lively crowd. The Spencers and Warfields got on swimmingly, to Wallis’s immense relief. Mary enjoyed the day but felt an underlying sense of loss. She watched Win help himself to his new wife’s uneaten dessert then claim her hand for the first dance, and she sensed that her friendship with Wallis would never be as close again.